A\\EUNIVERS//>.        vvlOSANCElfj-, 

-.  ^  ^     ^m^ 


vvlOS-ANCEl% 


AV\E  UNIVERS//, 


AND  THE 


A  DISCOURSE  BEFORE  SINAI  CONGREGATION, 


DECEMBER  2ND,  1888. 


IE.    C3--. 


S.    ETTLINIJER,    PRINTER.     178   MONROE   ST.,    CHICAGO. 


Stack 
Annex 


SOD 


THE  JEW  AND  THE  GREEK, 


A    Discourse    before  Sinai  Congregation, 

December  2nd,  1888, 
IE.    GK 


"  Out  of  the  mouth  of  babea  and  sucklings  hast  thou  ordained  strength  because  of 
thine  enemies,  that  thou  miahlest  still  the  enemy  and  the  boastful  threatener.  (Psalm  8.) 

The  day  we  celebrate  recalls  a  conflict  and  a  contrast.  In  bloody  battles 
the  conflict  culminated  and  was  decided.  Syria's  power  was  crushed. 
Never,  thereafter,  did  she  dare  invite  to  the  dance  of  war  the  hosts  of 
Judea.  But  the  contrast,  antedating  the  Syrian  period,  continues  to  this 
present  day.  The  Jew  and  the  Greek  are  the  two  opposite  poles.  In  these 
two  names,  crystallizes  the  antagonism  which  then  whetted  the  sword  of 
soldiers,  and  pointed  the  lances  of  horsemen,  but  which,  with  more  peace- 
ful weapons  pitting  one  type  of  civilization  against  another,  runs  through 
the  centuries.  The  selection  of  the  psalm,  from  which  the  above  verse  is 
taken,  as  expressive  of  this  contrast,  may  at  first  sight  appear  strange.  The 
little  Hebrew  lay  is  certainly  not  one  of  the  hymns  which  scholars  hold  to 
have  been  composed  during  the  Maccabean  period.  Nor  is  it  within  my 


5007S46 


intention  to  dwell  on  the  legendary  story  of  Hannah  and  her  sons,  whose 
unflinching  heroic  martrydom  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  text's  senti- 
ment. The  psalm  gives  a  description  of  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  of 
man's  high  position  within  and  above  the  sweep  of  created  things.  His 
royal  prerogative  to  rule  over  earth  is  brought  out  most  forcibly;  the 
thought  finds  winged  tongue  that  the  crowning  glory  of  all  creation  is  he, 
before  whose  endowments  the  stars  even  fade  as  tokens  of  the  divine  Excel- 
lency. In  its  composition,  the  poem  is  exceedingly  lucid.  It  moves  in 
plain  grooves;  its  unembellished  and  unaffected  simplicity  adds  the  charm 
of  innocency  to  the  sweet  fragrance  of  the  song's  melody.  This  descrip- 
tion conveys  a  doctrine  and  calls  for  the  performance  of  a  duty.  I  hesitate 
not  to  rate  the  psalm  as  the  most  succinct  summary  of  Jewish  belief.  If 
asked  to  give  a  statement  of  our  creed,  I  should  know  of  none  better  than 
this  eighth  psalm.  The  cardinal  thought  of  Judaism,  which  differentiates 
it  from  all  other  religious  systems,  is  man,  created  in  God's  image.  The 
heights  of  a  philosophical  monotheism,  the  chosen  few  who  were  nurtured 
at  the  breasts  of  wisdom,  among  other  nations  have  scaled  as  well  as  our 
prophets.  But  ethical  monotheism,  which  lifts  man  into  kinship  with  God, 
is  a  higher  message  than  the  metaphysical  ratiocinations  on  the  "Absolute." 
This  message  wells  out  from  Zion;  and  what  it  implies,  our  poem  voices. 
Bound  up  with  it,  is  man's  moraJ  life;  his  moral  freedom.  Man  is  not  an 
animal.  He  is  ruler  of  the  brute  within  and  without  him.  Between  him 
and  the  animal  gapes  an  impassable  chasm.  The  "  babe,"  the  potential 
man  of  the  future,  establishes  the  truth  of  a  higher  principle  than  is 
operative  in  the  forms  of  life  which  lie  beneath  even  infant  man.  Ac- 
customed as  we  have  become  to  the  jargon  of  the  natural  sciences,  we  are 
in  danger,-  without  feeling  it,  of  no  longer  understanding  the  vocabulary  of 
this  other  estimate  of  man's  relative  position.  The  similarities  between  man 
and  ape,  mind  and  mud  are  strongly  emphasized,  the  dissimilarities  crowded 
into  a  neglected  back-ground.  The  animal  struggles  for  existence;  man  for 
moral  existence.  This  distinction  is  vital.  It  was  sharply  drawn  by 
Judaism.  What  nature  produces  is  not  man.  Man  is  the  product  of  a 
process,  which  begins  where  "  nature  "  the  term  used  in  the  sense  of  popu- 
lar materialism  ends.  Man  controls  nature,  transforms  it,  triumphs  over 
it,  by  virtue  of  that  creative  spark,  which  is  kindled  within  him  by,  and  is 
of  one  essence,  with  the  Creator.  "What  is  man?"  asks  our  author,  in 
wonder  and  awe,  "because  Thou  doest  mind  him!  Thou  hast  made  him 
little  less  than  God !"  is  the  answered  definition.  To  make  himself  worthy 
of  this  station,  to  stamp  upon  Earth  this  divinity,  as  God  has  "  given  his 
glory  to  the  heavens,"  and  make  body  and  earth  a  home  worthy  of  a  God- 
like man, — this,  then,  is  the  object  of  human  life,  in  the  valuation  of  Judaism. 
Diametrically  opposed  to  this,  is  the  Greek's  notion  of  the  end  and  aim 
of  human  life.  It  is  extremely  instructive  to  compare  with  our  psalm,  one 
kindred  in  theme,  written  by  a  Greek  master. 

"  Many  the  forms  of   life,"  meditates  the  chorus  in  the  Antigone  of 
Sophocles.     "  Wondrous  and  strange  to  see." 


But  nothing  than  man  appears 

More  wondrous  and  more  strange. 
He  with  the  wintry  gales 
Mid  waves  wild  surging  round, 
Wendeth  his  way  across: 
Earth,  of  all  Gods  from  ancient  days  the  first, 

Unworn  and  undecayed, 

Fie.  with  his  ploughs  that  travel  o'er  and  o'er, 
Furrowing  with  horse  and  mule 

Wears  ever  year  by  year. 
The  thoughtless  tribe  of  birds 

The  beasts  that  roam  the  fields 
The  broods  in  sea  depths  born 
He  takes  them  all  in  nets 

Knotted  in  snaring  mesh. 
Man  wonderful  in  skill, 
And  by  his  subtle  arts 
He  holds  in  sway  the  beasts, 

That  roam  the  fields  or  tread  the  mountain  height, 
And  brings  the  binding  yoke 
Upon  the  neck  of  horse  with  shaggy  mane, 
Or  bull  on  mountain  crest 
Untamable  in  strength. 
And  speech  and  thought  as  swift  as  wind 

And  tempered  mood  for  higher  life  of  states 

These  he  has  learned,  and  how  to  flee 
Now  the  cold  of  frost  unkind, 

Now  darts  of  storm  and  shower. 
Man  all  providing.     Unprovided,  he 

Meeteth  no  chance,  the  coming  day  may  bring. 

Only  from  Hades  still 
He  fails  to  find  escape, 

Though  skill  of  art  may  teach  him  how  to  flee 
Prom  depths  of  fell  disease  incurable. 

None  will  read  this  portraiture  of  man's  powers  without  being  stirred. 
And  yet  it  lacks  a  certain  something;  an  aroma  which  the  simpler  move- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  bard  exhales.  As  literary  productions,  both  stand 
high,  and  it  is  difficult  to  decide  to  which  the  palm  belongs.  Both  are 
typical  of  the  world  from  which  they  spring:  The  Jew  God-fntoxicated, 
and  therefore  free  from  the  dread  of  the  end;  the  Greek,  admiring  the 
greatness  of  man,  and  yet  never  rid  of  the  thought  that  Hades  will  claim 
him.  For  no  Greek  could  ask  and  answer: — 

"  Who  made  you  glorious  as  the  gates  of  heaven 

Beneath  the  keen  full  moon? 

God!  let  the  torrents,  like  a  shout  of  nations, 
Answer!  and  let  the  ice-plains  echo,  God!" 


To  such  a  conception  of  nature's  message  the  Greek  mind  could  not 
wing  its  searching  flight;  the  relations  of  man  to  the  universe  remained  an 
unread  riddle.  The  ethics  taught  by  the  greatest  of  Greece's  sons  go  no 
further  than  to  inculcate  the  duty,  somehow  or  other,  to  follow  the  har- 
mony of  the  outward  things  in  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual.  The  beautiful 
is  also  the  good ;  to  an  appreciation  of  the  golden  harmony,  the  serene 
calm  of  the  deep  blue  sky,  the  mellow  tints  of  the  landscape  of  its  home; 
the  Greek  mind  had  indeed  risen.  The  inner  life  was  to  be  a  faithful  copy 
of  the  beauty  which  is  Greece's  dower  from  heaven.  Want  of  order  is  sin; 
excess  in  any  direction  excites  the  wrath  of  the  Gods.  The  plot  of  the 
most  stirring  tragedies  is  strung  to  these  ideas.  Insolenco  is  the  stepping 
stone  to  destruction;  punishment  and  retribution  follow  also  a  law  of  eternal 
order.  Prom  generation  to  generation  the  curse  runs  its  course:  the 
"  black  spirit  of  evil"  dementing  anew  its  predestined  victims.  The  state 
is  for  the  earlier  Greeks,  order  incarnate,  the  "  Ethos  "  custom,  the  eternal 
moral  law.  The  Sophists  act,  indeed,  as  a  solvent  upon  this  rigid  inflexible 
mass  of  ideas,  but  beyond  dissolving  the  old  security  of  life  and  creed  into 
shifting  individual  assumptions  equally  true  and  equally  false,  they  cannot 
push.  Their  successors  teach  that  knowledge  and  goodness  are  identical: 
with  a  pointed  utilitarian  conception  of  goodness  to  still  further  weaken 
what  of  truth  their  teachings  hold.  It  is  true,  Socrates  gives  in  dying, 
the  death-blow  to  his  own  theory;  displaying  in  his  last  hours  a  spirit 
which  is  the  very  opposite  of  utilitarian  or  revengeful;  but  his  disciple 
reverts  to  his  theories,  and  where  he  amplifies  them,  he  never  throws  off 
the  influence  of  the  fundamentally  Greek  conception.  A  natural  order  of 
virtues,  founded  in  the  appetites  and  the  qualifications  of  the  human 
soul,  is  the  richest  fruitage  which  Plato  culls  from  the  tree  of  his  idealism. 
Aristotle,  however  much  we  owe  to  his  sober  observation,  and  his  psy- 
chology, in  substance  returns  to  the  ethics  of  prudence  and  moderation. 

Characteristic  for  all  these  thinkers,  with  the  exception  of  Socrates,  as 
it  is  for  the  Greek,  is  their  scorn  of  labor.  Labor  is  the  ransom  which 
nature  exacts  for  its  subjugation  to  the  will  of  man.  Not  knowing  that 
man  is  destined  to  rule,  by  virtue  of  labor,  the  purpose  of  life  could  but  be 
sought  to  lie  elsewhere.  The  Greek  ideal  was  sure  to  lead  to  disappoint- 
ment. Life  was  not  beauty.  Evil  was  real.  Death  came,  and  before  death 
old  age !  No  wonder,  that  after  Plato  and  Aristotle,  pleasure  was  constituted 
life's  goal,  and  that  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans  soon  were  the  sole  exponents 
of  Greek  practical  philosophy.  No  wonder  that  what  little  ethical  posses- 
sions the  Greek  carrried  to  Asia  was  insufficient  to  save  him  from  moral 
bankruptcy,  when  exposed  to  the  temptation  of  the  fierce  Asiatic 
temperament.  If  we  pause  to  study  the  course  of  the  respective  develop- 
ments of  the  Greek  and  Jewish  ideas  and  ideals  under  Asiatic  influences, 
the  difference  of  the  two  becomes  most  patent  again.  Judaism  developed 
out  of  and  in  opposition  to  the  Asiatic  nature  religions.  It  triumphed  over 
them.  Greece  had  scarcely  come  in  contact  with  the  hotter  breath  of  Asia 
when  she  succumbed.  What  had  been  joy  at  home,  had  changed  to  revel, 


here.  Wild  Dyonysiac  orgies,  attended  with  frightful  debauches,  replaced 
the  stately  and  beautiful  processions  of  the  home  festivities.  A  glance  at  the 
literature  of  the  Asiatic  Greece,  suffices  to  show  to  what  depths  it  had  sunk. 
Greece,  never  having  risen  to  the  saving  ethics  of  man's  kingship,  could 
not  save  what  little  of  moral  humanity  she  had  when  exposed  to  the  con- 
tamination of  these  ethics  which  had  never  veiled  the  thought  of  nature's 
divinity,  and  never  hesitated  to  prostitute  man  in  the  service  of  nature. 
From  that  hot  furnace  of  vice  and  degradation,  the  prophets  had,  centuries 
ago,  snatched  and  saved  Israel.  Into  that  furnace,  Greece  in  Asia  had 
fallen.  The  Maccabean  struggle  was  for  the  preservation  of  Israel's 
treasure,  the  doctrine  sung  by  our  psalm.  Against  it  the  assailant's  blow 
was  directed.  At  stake  was  this  religion  of  morality,  and  therefore  the 
day  which  brings  to  us  the  memory  of  the  valiant  fight,  is  certainly  quick 
with  inspiration  for  us,  which  ill  we  can  spare.  Those  who  see  in  the  Mac- 
cabean uprising  merely  a  political,  a  national  movement,  have  not  sounded 
the  depths  of  the  issues,  then  trembling  in  the  balance  for  the  world.  With 
national  memories  we  have,  indeed,  but  little  sympathy;  we  are  no  longer  a 
nation,  that  we  should  dwell  on  the  life  and  experiences  of  national  heroes. 
Our  hopes  center  not  in  a  return  to  Palestine.  What  interest  could  we  have 
in  reviving  to-day  yet  the  recollections  of  a  political  independence  regained, 
but  to  be  lost,  and  not  lamented  and  regretted  by  us?  Such  is  the  plausible 
argumentation  of  many  among  us.  Though  I  would  not  lay  stress  on  the 
il  national  "  as  distinguished  from  the  "  religious  "  motive  in  the  Maccabean 
contest,  still,  in  this  connection,  let  me  say  that  the  stand  taken  for 
"  national "  independence  involved  a  true  principle.  So  strongly  national 
as  the  European  Greek  was,  so  weakly  cosmopolitan  had  become  'his 
Asiatic  Epigone.  The  book  of  Esther  reflecting  the  conditions  of  the  times, 
under  discussion,  as  wrell  as  the  books  of  the  Maccabees,  show  that  to  sweep 
away  all  traces  of  home  individualism  and  make  all  parts  of  the  realm 
uniform  was  the  dream  of  the  king's  counselors.  Faithfulness  to  one's 
own  national  customs  was  characterized  as  misanthropy?  treason  to  the 
cause  of  humanity.  In  rising  against  the  compulsion  and  coercion  of  the 
denationalized  Greek,  the  '*  national "  Jew  did  battle  for  a  right  inherent  in 
our  manhood.  The  fact  that  national  themes  are  worked  into  the  grander 
symphony  of  the  universally  human,  the  rescue  from  impending  annihila- 
tion of  the  best  and  purest  philosophy  of  human  life,  does,  when  rightly 
weighed,  enhance  its  overwhelming  impressiveness.  We  would  not  miss 
this  day,  in  the  cycle  of  our  synagogal  celebrations;  all  the  less,  since  to 
him  who  will  but  open  his  eyes,  will  unfold,  in  the  very  history  of  the  festival, 
the  cardinal  ideas  of  Judaism  as  set  to  melody  by  our  poet;  as  saved  for  the 
world  by  the  Asiatic  Jew  from  the  insolence  of  the  Asiatic  Greek. 

Criticism  is  correct  when  it  urges  that  all  of  our  festivals  originally 
rooted  in  a  thought-world  foreign  to  ours.  There  can  be  no  question  that 
this  festival,  long  before  the  Maccabean  era,  was  celebrated  by  many 

*.Diodorus  Siculus,    Kcloga,  34,  1,  quoted  by  Graetz,  Mschf  t.  86,  p.  486. 


6 

nations  and  many  clans  and  tribes,  as  the  winter  festivals  of  the  sun's  new 
birth.  Very  early  in  his  career,  man,  unconsciously,  felt  what  the  sciences 
to-day  clearly  teach,  that  his  life  and  the  beauty  of  earth,  and  the  fertility 
of  soil  and  sod  depended  on  the  rays  of  the  sun;  that  the  fiery  orb  in  the 
heavens  was  the  loom  on  which  the  web  of  life  was  spun.  But  it  seemed  to 
the  untutored  mind  of  the  infant  man  as  though  that  beneficent  power 
above  was  assailed  by  envious  demons.  The  shadows  of  the  night  contested 
daily  the  supremacy  of  light,  and  winter  with  its  terror  wrenched  strength 
year  after  year  from  the  king  of  life.  Yes,  for  some  weeks  in  midwinter,  it- 
seemed  as  though  the  powers  of  darkness  would  triumph.  The  heart  of 
man  must  have  been  heavy  when  witnessing  helplessly  that  drama  in  the 
heavens.  As  the  sun's  rays  grew  less  powerful,  thoughts  of  his  own  impend- 
ing death  could  not  but  crowd  upon  him.  But  at  the  very  crisis  a  new  hope 
comes  to  him,  the  contest  comes  to  a  standstill,  the  veil  of  doubt  is  lifted, 
the  sun  returns,  its  old  glories  reappear,  the  demons  of  darkness  are  put  to 
flight,  a  new  light  is  born.  Hence,  in  almost  all  forms  of  religion,  the  25th 
day  of  the  midwinter  month,  was  set  apart  as  a  joyful  festival  in  honor  of 
the  rekindling  of  a  new  light,  the  welcome  bringer  of  a  new  lease  and 
promise  of  life.  While  we  know  that  down  to  the  least  details  of  the 
Maccabean  rebellion,  the  accounts  that  have  come  to  us  are  substantially 
correct,  we  cannot  claim  that  the  choice  of  the  25th  day  of  Kislev  is  histor- 
ical. The  books  of  the  Maccabees  themselves  tell  us  that  on  the  25th  day 
of  that  month  was  the  great  festival  of  the  Syrian  Zeus.  *  The  day  thus 
is  a  legacy  of  Ante-Jewish  religions.  But  consider  what  Judaism  has  made 
of  this  festival  as  of  all  other  nature  festivals!  The  thoiight  that  runs 
through  the  festivities  of  the  heathens  is  that  man  stands  under  the 
control  of  the  powers  of  nature.  While  borrowing  from  the  antecedent 
religions  the  form  and  the  day  of  the  festivals,  Judaism  gave  them  a 
radically  different  bearing.  Not  man  under  nature,  but  man  the  ruler  of 
nature,  is  the  burden  of  Judaism's  festal  songs.  This  proud  consciousness 
comes  to  us  whenever  tbe  festal  seasons  visit  us,  if  we  but  understand  the 
message  delivered  to  us.  Symbols  of  this  kind  are  not  superfluous.  The 
age  of  symbolism  is  not  yet  past;  no  religion  can  spare  its  suggestive 
language. 

The  bearing  of  the  Jewish  festal  symbols  is  still  more  clearly  brought 
out  when  we  contrast  them  with  the  Christian  symbolism  as  formulated  in 
the  Christian  cycle.  Like  Judaism,  Christianity  has  adopted  the  form  and 
the  time  of  the  antecedent  heathen  celebrations,  but  it  has  made  of  them 
the  stations  of  a  personal  life.  One  man  alone  was  born  as  the  light,  one 
man  alone  occupied  a  high  station  as  conqueror  of  nature  and  of  death. 
Christianity  thus  pictures  the  possibilities  of  human  freedom  from  the 
chains  of  nature,  but  sadly  it  announces  that  that  freedom  was  forfeited  in 
the  beginning  of  time  by  the  folly  of  the  first  man;  to  a  few  worthy  men 
selected  from  all  those  that  are  under  the  curse  of  sin,  perhaps  after  this 

$ 
*  I  Mace.  1,  59.    Comp  with  I  Mace.  4,  54. 


life  is  over,  will  be  restored  the  crown  of  kingship.  Judaism  affirms  in  its 
festal  symbols  that  not  one  man  alone  carried  the  light,  that  not  one  man 
alone  is  king,  but  that  all  men,  all  humanity  is  ruler  little  less  than  the 
gods,  as  our  psalm  expresses  it.  Thus,  by  contrast  with  heathen  and  wTith 
Christian  symbolism,  our  festivals  are  the  very  incarnations  of  Jewish 
doctrine.  Can  we  spare  their  yearly  visit? 

It  has,  in  all  seriousness,  been  proposed  of  late  to  celebrate  Christmas 
and  our  festival  on  the  25th  day  of  December,  on  the  plea  that  as  both  had 
originally  the  same  character,  and  as  the  day  is  independent  of  the  supposed 
historical  occurrence,  it  were  well  to  obliterate  old  lines  of  distinctions. 
None  of  us  here  can  be  charged  with  a  desire  to  maintain  barriers  that  ought 
to  disappear.  And  still  I  doubt  whether  there  be  many'  among  us  that 
approve  of  the  proposition.  Christmas  calls  up  too  many  sad  memories  for 
the  Jew.  The  night  which  sang  the  song  of  peace  and  good  will  to  men, 
was  too  often  made  a  night  of  bitter  tears  for  the  Nazarene's  race-kindred, 
while  the  priest  at  the  altar  intonated  the  matins,  his  flock  was  busy  mas- 
sacring innocent  Jews.  It  is  not  fanaticism  that  refuses  to  make  of  the  day 
of  such  martyrdom  a  day  of  joy.  Christmas  and  Chanuka  alike  have 
become  sacred  to  innocent  childhood.  Out  of  the  mouth  of  babes,  on  these 
days,  sounds  the  glory  of  the  Highest.  Should  not  the  symbols  of  the 
occasion  be  free  from  the  association  with  the  Christological  interpretation 
of  the  verse  that  the  babe  that  conquered  the  enemy  was  born  that  night  in 
Bethlehem? 

The  law  of  attraction  operates  in  matters  of  this  kind;  the  larger 
impression  drowns  the  lesser.  Would  it  not  be  a  pity  to  place  in  the  shadow 
such  noble  figure  as  Judah  Maccabee?  Judaism  not  merely  announces  a 
doctrine  of  life;  it  insists  that  a  life  such  as  its  teachings  presuppose,  is 
within  the  reach  of  all.  And  hence,  in  its  festal  recollections,  the  Syna- 
gogue always  sets  before  us  a  personal  illustration  of  the  life.  Undimmed 
by  associations  of  another  kind,  shines  to-day  upon  us  the  justly  earned 
fame  of  Judah.  Nature  has  so  constituted  man  that  in  the  fundamental 
depth  of  his  nature  he  worships  the  hero.  Far  from  being  the  remnant  of 
doggish  servility,  this  hero-worship  is  the  outpouring  of  the  human  soul's 
self-consciousness.  It  is  the  tribute  paid  by  the  human  soul  to  another  soul, 
the  mirror  of  its  own  self,  the  emblem  of  what  powers  slumber  unawakened 
in  its  own  undercurrents. 

As  the  German  poet  has  it: — 

'4  Inwendig  lernt  kein  Mensch  sein  Innerstes 
Erkennen  denn  er  misst  nach  eignem  Mass 
Sich  bald  zu  klein  und  leider  oft  zu  gross, 
Der  Mensch  erkennt  sich  nur  im  Menschen,  nur 
Das  Leben  lehret  jedem  was  er  sei." 

It  is,  therefore,  not  a  matter  of  indifference  to  what  hero  the  tribute  of 
admiration  is  offered.  Man  learning  to  know  himself  only  in  another  man 
is  'dependent  on  his  teacher.  Popular  legends  throw  a  bold  light  on  the 


8 

characters  of  nations.  The  legend  is  always  poetry:  and  it  is  the  poet's  to 
read  the  hidden  lines  of  the  soul.  The  legends  which  have  grown  around 
the  names  recalled  by  the  festal  cycle  of  the  synagogue,  indeed  tingle  with 
the  strongest  poetry.  Whether  using  historical  material  or  spinning  their 
biographies  with  lighter  threads  of  fancied  fable,  the  associations  that 
cluster  around  our  holidays  are  sacred  to  the  best  the  human  soul  calls  its 
own.  The  heroes  that  come  to  us  on  the  wings  of  festal  song,  are  not 
shadowy  idealisations,  characters  sweet  and  tender,  gentle  and  noble,  but 
which  hold  no  relation  with  the  realities  of  stern  life: — impossibilities  as 
long  as  man  is  a  denizen  of  the  sublunar  sphere.  Our  great  men  are  of 
flesh  and  bone;  they  are  not  above  the  things  of  life,  but  within  them.  They 
have  hearts  attuned  to  love,  but  not  void  of  the  sterner  emotions.  They  are 
men  who  are  not  dead  to  the  fire  of  noble  indignation;  to  the  holy  wrath 
of  righteousness.  They  are,  indeed,  linked  to  the  life  of  a  nation,  but  they 
express  nevertheless  the  universally  human.  Many  are  the  bright  stars 
glowing  in  the  gallaxy  of  fame,  arching  the  heavens  of  other  nations.  To 
me,  I  cannot  escape  the  impression,  it  seems  these  carry  much  more  of  the 
purely  local,  the  temporal  in  their  constitution,  than  do  the  great  names  of 
biblical  literature.  And  consider  how  naturally,  and  therefore  how  skill- 
fully these  biographies  are  constructed!  In  every  case  the  hero  is  associated 
with  his  opposite.  On  the  background  of  a  baser  character  rises  to  greater 
clearness  the  gold  of  virtue.  Who  thinks  of  Moses  without  feeling  that  the 
picture  w*hich  he  carries  of  Is<  ael's  lawgiver  is  all  the  more  sharply  printed 
upon  his  mind  because  the  Pharaoh  of  Exodus  is  its  foil?  Fiery  Elija  and 
cold  Ahab?  Our  Judah  is  also  confronted  by  his  moral  antipode.  He  the 
type  of  the  true  Jew;  the  king,  the  most  striking  pattern  of  the  Asiatic 
Greek. 

We  know  enough  of  the  character  of  Antioch  to  make  good  the  aver- 
ment that,  such  as  he  was,  he  was  the  typical  product  of  Asiatic  Hellenism. 
Proud  and  without  self-respect,  spendthrift  and  miser,  gracious,  and  cold, 
brave  and  cowardly,  he  was  a  bundle  of  contradictions,  which  are  natural 
enough  in  one  that  never  learned  the  duty  of  self  control;  on  the  contrary, 
whose  philosophy  of  conduct  was  nature- worship  gone  to  seed.  Not  having 
found  it  himself,  he  could  not  presuppose  in  others  a  self.  He  despised  all 
men.  A  cynic,  if  ever  there  was  one,  he  thought  that  every  man  had  his 
price  and  was  ready  to  sell  himself  to  the  highest  bidder.  Having  no  con- 
victions himself,  he  did  not  look  for  any  in  other  men.  And  the  sum  and 
substance  of  this  life  of  whim,  caprice  and  untutored  fancy  and  uncon- 
trolled impulses,  could  not  but  be  a  despotism  of  fiendish  fanatical 
cruelty.  Ah!  rightly  was  his  name  changed  to  Epimanes.  A  mad  craven 
was  he;  afraid  of  the  lurking  dagger  of  the  everywhere  suspected  assassin, 
and  still  more  afraid  of  himself.  Turn  now  to  Judah!  What  distinguishes 
him  above  his  peers  in  generalship,  is  not  his  patriotism,  not  his  valor,  not 
his  skill  in  organizing  and  marshalling  his  scant  resources.  These  qualifi- 
cations are  not  rare  among  the  military  leaders  of  the  race.  Others  beside 
him  have  wrenched  victorv  from  the  verv  teeth  of  defeat.  His  crown  of 


glory  is  his  unbounded  faith  in  the  goodness  of  human  nature.  If  ever 
man  had  cause  to  despair  of  men,  it  was  he.  Treason  everywhere,  and  des- 
pair in  the  hearts  of  the  few  loyal  Jews.  But  far  from  hugging  blaunch 
despondency  to  his  bosom,  he  rushes  to  the  fray,  daring  and  doing;  and 
whelming  the  lukewarm  along  in  the  warm  whirl  of  his  staunch  enthusi- 
asm. And  still  more  than  for  what  he  did,  he  is  to  be  admired  for  what  he 
refused  to  do.  What  position  did  not  Syria  promise  to  a  man  of  his  mili- 
tary genius?  Had  he  been  of  one  mind  with  the  king,  or  even  only  like 
the  "  Jews  for  revenue,"  who  had  outbid  each  other  for  the  priesthood,  his 
choice  would  have  been  a  different  one.  His  own  land  promised  him  noth- 
ing. No  army  to  rise  to  honor  and  wealth,  perhaps  the  rebel's  death,  the 
martyr's  honored  grave.  He  chose  as  the  Jew  choses  and  his  very  choice 
was  a  victory  over  the  Asiatic  Greek!  Should  we  not  watch  jealously  over 
the  memory  of  such  a  name?  Should  our  children  not  learn  from  that 
example  what  makes  the  true  hero?  That  an  energetic  life  in  behalf  of 
the  highest  treasures  of  man,  and  not  a  patient  passion-death,  is  the  ideal 
of  life. 

This  is  the  peculiarity  of  our  holidays:  their  symbols  speak  the  dialect 
of  the  past,  but  their  thought  is  fresh  and  leads  directly  into  the  busy  con- 
trasts of  the  living  anxious  present.  So  does  this  day  not  merely  recall  the 
past,  but  it  points  out  also  where  the  battle  lies  of  our  day.  Hellenist  and 
Jew  are  contending  forces  now  yet.  Who  are  the  spiritual  heirs  of  the  greek- 
lings  among  the  Jews?  I  am  almost  sure  that  in  many  a  so-called  orthodox 
pulpit  to-day  we  were  likened  to  them.  Those  who  have  drawn  the  compari- 
son, have  not  yet  learned  to  distinguish  between  the  essentials  and  the  super- 
ficial accidentals.  We,  it  is  true,  fail  to  observe  many  of  the  old  national 
customs;  so  did  the  Hellenists.  But  there  the  similarity  ends.  "Duo  si 
faciunt  idem,  non  est  idem  /"  Our  motive  is  radically  different.  They  wished 
to  hide  their  Judaism;  we  have  no  such  intention.  We  claim  that  to-day  to 
mark  the  difference  these  outward  signs  are  not  necessary.  History  repeats 
itself,  but  not  in  the  sense  that  our  orthodox  brethren  profess  to  believe. 
Have  they  not  also  changed  methods?  Palestine  is  under  foreign  domin- 
ion, why  do  they  to-day  not  organize  a  movement  to  wrench  the  holy 
land  from  the  unspeakable  Turk?  Ah!  their  dreams  of  restoration  are  not 
of  the  sword,  their  Maccabees  fight  with  other  weapons.  The  circumstan- 
ces of  history  change  and  the  conditions  and  weapons  under  which  and 
with  which  the  old  cont  ests  are  to  be  decided  anew.  We  return  to  the  po- 
sition of  the  old  prophets.  Their  antagonism  to  the  foreigner  was  pointed 
to  the  foreigner's  views  as  far  as  they  marked  an  irreconcilable  antagon- 
ism to  Judaism.  Asiatic  Greece  and  Judaism  is  such  an  impassable  gulf. 
The  Hellenists  of  the  Maccabean  period  had  forgotten  this.  As  shown  be- 
fore, the  Greek  mind  then  had  lost  nearly  all  of  its  virility.  The  Stoic 
ideal  of  passionless  and  ambitionless  resignation,  the  creed  which  writes 
life  down  a  failure,  controlled  the  chosen  few;  the  masses  were  steeped  in 
degenerated  Epicureanism.  However  far  from  sensual  materialism  the 
founder  whose  name  the  system  bears  may  have  been;  now  the  designa 


10 

tion,  as  used  in  the  Hebrew  of  the  time,  stands  for  ethical  materialism. 
Greek  culture  then  was  materialism  run  riot.  No  wonder  that  Greek  and 
Jew  then  were  an  inexhorable  alternative.  But  are  we  ethical  materialists? 
You  adopt  the  Christian  customs  as  your  prototypes  did  those  of  the 
Greeks.  So  runs  the  invective  of  our  conservative  brethren.  We  strive, 
indeed,  to  make  of  Judaism  a  living  factor  in  the  world  of  modern  thought 
and  activity,  in  keeping  with  its  spiritual  mission.  The  modern  world  we 
seek  is  not  Christian.  If  the  orthodox  pulpit  mistakes  occidentalism  for 
Christian,  it  does  yoeman's  service  in  behalf,  not  of  Judaism  but  of  <  'Itrix- 
tianity.  Modern  culture  in  its  basic  elements  is  closely  akin  to  the  creed 
of  Judaism  as  laid  down  in  my  text.  The  mediaeval  civilization  icas  Chris- 
tian. There  the  thought  of  the  "other  world"  swayed  the  minds  of  men. 
Then  private  and  public  life;  society  and  the  state,  were  of  the  ethics  of 
resignation.  Then  as  a  natural  consequence  "of  the  corruption  of  the 
flesh,"  the  things  temporal  were  under  the  control  of  the  church.  With 
the  reformation,  a  new  movement  begins,  away  from  the  specifically  Chris- 
tian ethics  of  resignation  toward  the  elements  which  Judaism  had  given  as 
a  dower  to  her  daughter.  It  is  not  I,  a  Jew,  who  would  advance  this  claim. 
Ziegler,  in  his  history  of  ethics,  John  St.  Mill,  in  his  writings,  Eiken,  in  his 
work,  "  Mittelalterliche  Weltanschauung,"  and  others  of  non-Jewish  birth, 
bring  out  this  point  most  saliently.  No!  Modern  civilization  is  not  Chris- 
tian in  the  dogmatic,  i.  e.  anti-Jewish  sense  of  the  term. 

Modern  civilization  is  not  the  child  of  a  philosophy  of  resignation.  It 
is  not  born  of  the  spirit  of  other-worldliness.  It  is  the  outgrowth  of  a 
sentiment  that  this  earth  is  to  be  transformed  into  an  Eden.  Civilization 
is  the  conquest  of  nature.  It  is  the  practical  application  of  the  doctrines 
preached  by  our  psalm.  Never  was  man  more  absolute  king  of  the  things 
of  earth  as  he  is  to-day.  I  repeat — modern  culture  has  many  elements,  yea 
its  fundamental  character  is,  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental  principles 
of  Judaism.  We  are  striving  to  realize  in  the  modern  world  the  principles 
of  Judaism,  and  therefore  willingly  throw  down  the  barriers  that  separate 
us  from  the  world  at  large,  in  order  to  become  a  living  factor  among  the 
upbuilders.  We  are  not  traitors  to  Judaism,  nay  we  but  fulfill  the  very 
essence  of  Judaism.  Not  the  reformed  Jew  is  the  Hellenist  of  modern 
time,  nor  is  it  he  who  has  deeply  drunk  of  the  thought-life,  and  is  imbued  with 
the  energy  and  ideals  of  modern  man.  The  ethical  materialist  is  the  spir- 
itual successor  to-day  of  the  old  Epicureans.  With  materialism  as  a  phil- 
osophy of  life,  Judaism  has  indeed  no  kinship;  to  the  contrary,  it  is  its  own 
sworn  enemy.  Materialism  is  the  acknowledgment  that  the  animal  in  man 
is  the  ruling  factor  of  human  character.  Materialism  makes  selfishness  the 
pivot  of  life.  Judaism,  and  reformed  Judaism  perhaps  more  strenuously 
than  what  is  called  orthodox  Judaism,  lays  stress  on  the  duty  to  make  the 
spiritual  in  man,  the  divine  in  man,  the  king  over  heart  and  the  guide  of 
hand.  Not  selfishness,  but  self-development  is  the  cardinal  precept  of  our 
ethics.  The  individual  man  belongs  to  society  at  large,  the  individual  life 
must  be  rounded  out  through  the  co-operation  with  all  other  individual 


11 

lives.  According  to  Judaism  thus  the  individual  is  not  lost  in  the  mass  as 
modern  materialism  would  have  us  believe,  but  the  mass  is  composed  of 
single  souls,  each  one  of  whom  has  the  duty  to  strive  after  perfection. 
But  those  single  souls  are  bound  together  by  one  common  purpose.  The 
individual  man  is  incompetent  to  rule  over  earth  and  to  subdue  it.  It  is 
only  through  co-operation  that  this  ideal  is  approximately  made  true;  and 
therefore,  Judaism  to-day  teaches,  and  the  reformed  synagogue  to-day  voices 
it,  that  all  that  individual  man  has  or  holds,  he  has  and  holds  in  trust  for  all 
humanity.  One  God  certainly  may  be  translated  into  the  phrase: 
One  Humanity;  and  thus,  Judaism  holds  the  key  to  the  riddles 
and  problems  that  burden  modern  man.  Social  conflicts  and  social 
distrusts  would  all  be  stilled  were  it  known,  yea  were  it  practically  applied 
that  "  Out  of  the  mouth  of  babes  thou  hast  announced  glory."  Judaism 
is  not  a  philosophy  of  the  strong;  it  is  a  philosophy  of  the  weak.  That 
the  weak  and  the  poor  are  not  forsaken  of  God;  that  the  strong  should 
help  the  weak,  that  the  rich  should  assist  the  poor,  that  the  wise  must  live 
for  the  foolish;  this  is  the  thought  that  modern  materialism  knows  not, 
that  old  materialism,  Hellenism,  knew  not.  It  is  a  thought  that  Heathenism 
was  ignorant  of,  and  its  full  import  Christianity  even  has  failed  to  grasp. 
It  is  a  thought,  the  redeeming  influence  of  which  our  world  needs,  and  the 
reformed  Jew  has  taken  upon  himself  the  duty,  with  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
Judah  Maccabee,  with  the  devotion  such  as  the  Asmoneans  had,  to  do  battle 
for  this  thought,  to  realize  it  with  his  own  life  and  through  his  own  life  to 
make  it  felt  with  the  world  at  large.  No,  we  are  not  Hellenists.  We 
understand  the  meaning  of  this  festal  season.  We  know  that  it,  by  its  very 
history  and  the  contrasts  which  this  history  opens  to  our  view,  teaches  the 
very  life  doctrine  of  Judaism.  We  prize  the  heroism  of  the  great  and  good 
men  that  offered  their  life  willingly  on  the  altar  of  principle,  and  we  would 
emulate  their  example.  Not  less  are  we  Jews,  but  more  Jews  when  we  feel 
the  sympathy  which  the  true  and  sturdy  life  around  us  holds  with  our 
doctrines.  Modern  culture  is  not  the  culture  of  Greece  of  old.  We  dena- 
tionalize Judaism,  but  we  are  actuated  by  motives  that  are  as  far  removed 
from  the  views  of  the  old  Hellenists  as  is  the  east  separated  from  the  west. 
Yea,  the  spirit  of  the  old  Maccabees  is  within  us,  and  we,  not  merely  with 
the  lips,  but  pratically,  would  say,  singing  the  song  of  this  hour,  "  Out  of 
the  mouth  of  babes  and  sucklings  thou  hast  established  glory."  For  such 
is  the  belief  not  of  the  Greek,  but  of  the  Jew!  " 


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